A challenging course and the absence of the two-time defending champion will make for an unpredictable race at the first Worlds held in Africa.
Cor Vos
Once a year, the best in women’s cycling line up to compete for an honour most riders only dream of owning – (road) World Champion. For most, representing their nation in itself is something special. For fans, the added tactical chaos of a nation race, where riders who normally race against each other, like Demi Vollering (FDJ-Suez) and Anna van der Breggen (SD Worx-Protime), pull on the same jersey (Netherlands), only adds to the fun. This year will be a race the likes of which we’ve literally never seen before. The roads are new, the course downright brutal, and the list of contenders long.
For the first time in cycling’s long history, the Road World Championships are in Africa, a long plane ride from Europe, where the riders are used to competing. One can only assume Kigali thought it would deliver one of the most insane races ever when the venue received the bid to host the Worlds, because the course looks like something out of a sprinter’s worst nightmare. A long list of climbers, however, will have seen what’s on the menu and salivated at the thought of what this race could bring. Take Elisa Longo Borghini, for example, or Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney.
Saturday’s race will either be a race where teammates are everything, or it will be every rider for themselves, and at the end of the day, we will have a new world champion to crown.
The Basics
When: Saturday, September 27 – live coverage set to begin at 8:10 CET/02:10 ET/16:10 AEST
Distance and elevation gain: 165 km, 3,350 metres climbing
How to watch: TNT Sports and Discovery+ (UK and Europe), FloBikes (Canada and USA), Stan (Australia)
Escape Collective star ratings
We’ll get to the full contenders rundown in a moment but here’s a quick peek at the riders we’re watching most closely.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️: Demi Vollering (Netherlands), Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (France), Kim Le Court-Pienaar (Mauritius), Elisa Longo Borghini (Italy)
⭐️⭐️⭐️: Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Poland), Marlen Reusser (Switzerland)
⭐️⭐️: Anna van der Breggen (Netherlands), Liane Lippert (Germany)
⭐️: Brodie Chapman (Australia), Elise Chabbey (Switzerland)
The Route
On Saturday, the women will roll out to race 11 laps of a 15 km circuit. The circuit is reasonably technical, with some tricky corners to navigate (especially around the golf course), but it’s not the race on a map that the women will be thinking about; it’s the profile.
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